Nov. 22, 2011
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech will round out its 2011 regular season with a rare Wednesday night game where the Yellow Jackets will take on Clemson at 6:30 p.m. on November 23 at O’Keefe Gymnasium. Tech (15-15, 8-11 ACC) will look to stay over .500 in 2011 with a victory. The team will honor lone senior Asia Stawicka prior to the match.
The Jackets are coming off of a couple of hard fought losses on the weekend falling to No. 22 Miami in five sets and to No. 21 Florida State in four. With her 39 kills on the weekend, Monique Mead moves up to third place on Tech’s single season kills list with 578 kills recorded in 2011. Mead is just eight kills away from the second spot and with 22 kills would be only the second player in Tech history to record 600 kills in a season.
THE TEAMS
SCOUTING CLEMSON: Clemson is 19-11 overall and 11-8 in ACC play heading into their final regular season game at Tech. Clemson’s season has been a streaky one. The Tigers started off with four-straight wins, dropped the next three, won the next six, dropped two, won three, fell in three out of four, won five, lost three and, heading into the game with Tech, are coming off of win over No. 22 Miami. Clemson has played six ranked teams on the season holding a 1-5 record in 2011 over ranked opponents.
The Tigers are led by Sandra Adeleye who has put down 389 kills (3.35/match) for a .350 hitting percentage. She is also a member of the century club with 106 blocks on the season (21 solo, 85 assisted) and has combined for nearly a quarter of Clemson’s points this season.
SERIES PAST: Tech and Clemson have met 53 times in the past with the Tigers holding the 30-23 advantage including a win earlier this season in Clemson. Always a battle, Tech and Clemson are 5-5 in the last 10 meetings between the two teams with seven of those 10 games going to five sets.
THE STATS
MEAD LEADS THE ACC (AND COUNTRY): Junior Monique Mead continues to lead the ACC in kills per set and is second in the nation at 5.07. She also leads the ACC in points per set and ranks second in the country with 5.75. The Newnan, Ga., native has 11 double-doubles this season, 14 matches with at least 20 kills and has recorded double figure kills in each match this season. Mead is also averaging 2.56 digs per set and 0.80 blocks.
Last weekend against Miami, Mead moved into third on the single season kills list after notching her 11th double-double and 14th match with at least 20 kills (24). Mead is just eight kills away from the second spot and with 22 kills would be only the second player in Tech history to record 600 kills in a season.
DUAL THREAT: The Jackets have a dual threat at the setter position with Freshman Ali Santi dishing out 10.89 assists per set this year. Her 60 assists against NC State was good enough for fourth most in a game in the ACC this season and she also has five double-doubles under her belt.
However, Kaleigh Colson has been taking the majority of the sets for the Jackets, netting 758 on the year in 77 sets for a 9.84 assist/set average, fifth in the ACC. Colson has dished out at least 40 assists in eight of her last 11 games, and had 94 last weekend against Miami and Florida State. The sophomore also has a knack for finding the open spots on the court and has recorded 94 kills this year and 29 service aces which ranks second on the team. Her aces/game average, however, is second in the ACC. Colson is a major threat when she is on the court as she recorded her first career triple-double at Miami (34 assists, 12 kills, 11 digs) also earning four service aces in the match.
SMOKIN’ ACES: Colson’s aces have helped Tech to 1.28 aces per set, second in the ACC (1.36/set in ACC play, however ranks first). Also adding to the total is Susan Carlson who had tallied 33 aces on the season, the team leader. Carlson went off for four service aces against Boston College and Maryland to boost her to seventh in the ACC with .29 aces/set but second in ACC play registering .35 aces/set, just .01 points ahead of Carlson who sits in third.
Also seeing success at the service line against Boston College and Maryland was Quinn Evans who notched three service aces of her own, including three at the end of a set one victory over Maryland. Evans’ aces erased a two-point Terrapin lead and gave the Jackets a five-point advantage of their own and the early victory.
ACC-OLADES: After her play against Boston College and Maryland, Mead was named the ACC Co-Player of the Week after her 51 kill, 21 dig performance against Boston College and Maryland, it was her fourth ACC Player of the week honor and second this season. Mead, after entering the weekend tallying 5.09 kills/set, upped that total with a 22 kill performance against Boston College and a 29 kill performance at Maryland, the most kills in a four set match by an ACC player this season. Mead’s 22 kills on Friday night was accompanied by 12 digs as she netted her 11th double-double of the season. Her 20-kill games were the 12th and 13th time she accomplished the feats on the season. Over the course of the weekend, Mead finished with 51 kills for a .392 hitting percentage and 21 digs.
Mead also earned the honor earlier this season after the Georgia Tech Courtyard Marriott Classic where she helped the Jackets to a 3-0 weekend. Mead averaged 5.25 kills a set and hit .331 en route to MVP honors of the Georgia Tech Courtyard Marriott Classic. The two-time All-American also averaged 2.58 digs per set and had eight total blocks and seven service aces. Mead had 20 kills in a four-set win over Kansas State Friday night in the season opener and then tied a career-high with 30 the next night against Louisville as Tech overcame a 2-0 deficit to stun the preseason Big East favorites.
The Newnan, Ga., native exploded for 22 of her 30 kills in the final three sets against the Cardinals, including 11 in the third, to help the Jackets begin the season 3-0 for the second time in three years under head coach Tonya Johnson. It was the second time Mead went for 30 kills in her career and just the 13th time in school history an individual has had at least 30 kills.
THE NEWS
TOP-10: Monique Mead cracked the top-10 in the career kills category last weekend at NC State and currently sits in 10th place with 1,449 … one thing, Monique Mead is only a JUNIOR. After netting 356 kills in her freshman season and 515 in 2010, Mead has already tallied 578 kills this season with one game to go. Mead will more than likely not be able to beat Lynette Moster’s single season kills record of 629 set back in 2002, as she would have to net 51 kills in the game against Clemson, but she is five kills away from the No. 9 spot on the career kills list, seven away from No. 8 and 16 away from No. 7.
DOWN A COUPLE JACKETS: Tech’s two seniors, Bailey Hunter and Asia Stawicka, each have gone down with an injury during the 2011 season. Hunter, a captain this season, was the first to miss a game with a torn abdominal muscle while Stawicka injured her knee during the Maryland game back on October 7.
JACKETS DIG FOR THE CURE: Every year, the Georgia Tech volleyball team hosts a dig for the cure game in October to help raise money for the Susan G. Komen foundation. This season, during the weekend of the NC State and North Carolina games, Tech hosted a silent auction to auction off their pink jerseys also collecting donations over the course of the weekend.
